So if you boiled it for 60 minutes in a small amount of water, you should be able to add that to the beer and bumb up the bitterness, right? I think it sounds easier than trying to get bitterness out of pellet or whole hops in a small volume.

So if you boiled it for 60 minutes in a small amount of water, you should be able to add that to the beer and bumb up the bitterness, right? I think it sounds easier than trying to get bitterness out of pellet or whole hops in a small volume.

In my experience, you may get bitterness, but it's a very harsh, vegetal bitterness that I certainly wouldn't want in my beer.

So if you boiled it for 60 minutes in a small amount of water, you should be able to add that to the beer and bumb up the bitterness, right? I think it sounds easier than trying to get bitterness out of pellet or whole hops in a small volume.

In my experience, you may get bitterness, but it's a very harsh, vegetal bitterness that I certainly wouldn't want in my beer.

Are we still talking about the hop shots Denny, or are you talking about boiling hops in plain water?

Today, 22 days after brewing, I tasted all three brews. Wyeast 3787 - awesome. This one was not augmented after the brew like the other two. But something new I did, new for me, was to include carmelized sugar in the boil, turbinado, carmelized in a large skillet. It's amazing how the sugar allows it to attenuate very dry (82% 1.010) without erasing all the sweetness, adding the elegance factor. This one is cold conditioning now, and I'll keg it in a week or two.Wyeast 1968 - turned out great. No problems resulted from adding the bitter wort a few days after the boil. I wouldn't do it again unless I had to, but I learned a lot. The added sugar also let it attenuate way down there (80% at least), but it still has sweetness. Not a style winner (too dry), but clear of course, clean, elegant, good. It's also cold conditioning, like the Belgian.WLP013 - Ditto as for the 1968. Less flocculent of course, but no problem I'm going to bottle it, and put off cold conditioning for about another month.What I learned - Sugar is a great additive. Increases attenuation, dries the finish, and leaves sweetness.I wouldn't add as much as I did in any future beers, except for Belgians, but it's awesome stuff.Thanks for all the help.

I made the mistake of boiling hops in plain water to add some bitterness to an under bittered beer... big mistake, although it did mellow in about 6 months... I would highly recomend adding some DME or corn sugar to it, like Denny said, its not a good bitterness... at least at first.